One False Step
by sapphirerosha110
Summary: A guilt-wracked Stefan leaves Mystic Falls and charges Damon with Elena's protection. As threats close in from all sides, the pair must bond together in order to survive.
1. The Beast Within

**Author's Notes: This story begins around the middle of season two and contains mild spoilers of the same. Then again I think you should probably catch up on episodes before reading fanfiction, but that's just my opinion.**

**Disclaimer: I own no part of the Vampire Diaries or affiliated characters, this story is written for purely entertainment purposes and I am receiving no reimbursement for it, monetary or otherwise.**

_Chapter One - The Beast Within_**  
**

Elena opened her eyes slowly and sighed when she felt an arm wrap around her waist, pulling her closer to the strong body next to her. Stefan whispered gently in her ear,

"Good morning love."

She rolled over and looked up at him, getting lost in his deep hazel eyes as he leaned down to kiss her. She closed her eyes and arched into the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling herself up closer to him, feeling his body press against hers. He kissed down her chin and lightly brushed her neck with his lips, gently massaging the delicate flesh. Elena sighed softly at the sensation and reached up to wind her fingers into his hair.

He suddenly sat back, breathing heavily and Elena could see the swollen veins around his eyes. She leaned back against the headboard, frustrated that he had to break the moment like this. She sat up and grasped his face in her hands, pressing her mouth to his again.

"Elena, please…" he put his hands up to try and stop her, but she leaned into him

"Please what?" She whispered into his ear

"Stop." His voice was pleading. He was fighting against his instincts and Elena was nearly irresistible. She caught the lobe of his ear with her teeth and he saw red. He flashed back to the most primal of instincts he had.

He grabbed her wrists that were near his face and threw her back on the bed. He felt the pricking in his gums as his fangs descended and he barely heard her say his name before his teeth were buried in the soft flesh of her neck.

He had been drinking her blood for weeks to try and make himself stronger, but never a flood like this. The sweet, metallic elixir flowed across his tongue and he sank his fangs deeper, wanting to devour her whole. A strangled yelp punctuated the shrill sound that had filled his ears and it was then he realized she must have been screaming. His lips twitched into a slight smirk, fear made blood taste better.

In the middle of his reverie he heard the door fly open and turned around to look at the intruder. Damon paused for only a fraction of a second to take in what was going on before he was by the bed and throwing Stefan to the ground. There was a feral gleam in the younger brother's eye and he tried to leap upward to attack Damon, but he was no match for the stronger vampire who drank human blood daily.

Damon landed on top of Stefan, holding him by the bare shoulders and slamming his head into the floor, which splintered under the impact. When the first hit did nothing, Damon forced his head back again, then the third time that Stefan's skull collided with the floor, his eyes rolled in his head and he blinked a few times. The veins around his eyes melted away and his fangs pulled back behind his lips.

"What's going on?" He asked, dazed from Damon's beating

"I could ask you the same thing, brother." Damon said and glared down at him, keeping a vice-like grip on his shoulders.

"I don't… oh God, Elena!" Stefan struggled to get up, but Damon was immovable.

"I really don't think it's a good idea for you to see her right now. Not when you have her blood all over you." The look in the ice blue eyes bearing down on Stefan was one of pain and… disappointment? Stefan could taste the blood in his mouth and it suddenly occurred to him what he had done. He had hurt Elena. Of his own free will he slammed his head back into the floor, nestling it into the forming crater and feeling the wood shards piercing his scalp.

Damon hoisted Stefan to his feet and threw him out the bedroom door and down the stairs. He rolled over and over and didn't seem to care when his entire body weight crashed into the wall were the stairs made an angle. He just lay in a crumpled heap, clenching a fist into his hair.

Damon closed the door to Stefan's bedroom and locked it, then turned around. Elena was cowering in Stefan's bed under the covers, hiding out of modesty or fear, he couldn't tell. She had one hand pressed to her neck were Stefan had bitten her and the normally immaculate white sheets were stained with bright red blood.

He approached the bed slowly and she said

"Stay away from me, Damon." He stopped dead in his tracks, then got the expression of anger he did when he was trying to cover up the fact that he cared

"I just want to make sure you're alright. So shoot me."

"Alright? Stefan has never done something like that before…" Elena trailed off, then added at a raised eyebrow from Damon, "at least not to me."

"It was like he was back in the old days again, purely instinct driven, not caring who he hurt." Damon said the words to the air more than to Elena, he was facing mostly away from her because he knew she would be uncomfortable if he were looking at her despite the fact that she was under the blankets. Vampires didn't have X-ray vision, but they still had a tendency to make humans nervous.

"So when did you two switch?"

"What do you mean?" He turned his head over his shoulder to look at her and she pulled the comforter up to her chin.

"I mean, from the stories that you two have told me, he was the 'bad brother' back then. He forced you to turn and you promised him an eternity of misery. When did he decide that he needed to be good?"

Damon took a deep breath as he arranged his thoughts and pulled the antique chair over from Stefan's desk. He set it down and straddled it backward, folding his arms across the back of it.

"Stefan…" Damon paused for a moment, "Stefan was a bit of a… well we used to call them "nancy-boys" he was very quiet, reserved, proper, the model of propriety. He was also weak. When he became a vampire, he saw his power as an opportunity to not be pushed around anymore and he took it to an extreme. Killing was his expression of independence, freedom, and strength. He was no longer the brother I had known and I disowned him as such. After a while of that life, he ran into Lexi, who taught him how to be human again, to be guilty, and he changed. I on the other hand felt all my guilt and humanity at the beginning and thought Stefan was being reckless and foolish, so I left. I wandered the world on my own, slowly growing more jaded to the filth of humanity until I stopped caring and decided that the human race could do with a few less cockroaches, and so I started killing for enjoyment. It is a sick a twisted world we live in."

Elena didn't do anything but nod. Her long dark hair was in disarray and she still hadn't taken her hand away from her neck.

"I can fix that for you." He said and she turned to him with an expression of confusion on her face

"Huh?"

"Physically, anyway, a little bit of my blood and you'll be healed in no time. Probably won't even be dizzy when you stand up."

Elena's eyes grew wide and she shook her head.

"Are you sure?" Elena shifted slightly and looked away for a moment, then back at him. He rolled up his sleeve and tore his wrist with his teeth. Blood welled out of the wound and ran down the outside of his wrist, dripping onto the comforter.

Elena reluctantly sat up, keeping the blankets pressed close to her body with one hand as she leaned forward to drink from Damon's wrist. Her forehead wrinkled in displeasure and she sat back with a sneer on her face. Damon could see the bite mark on her neck healing over and he stared at her for another moment longer. With blood on her lips she looked like Katherine, and that twisted something inside him that he couldn't identify.

"I'll leave so that you can get yourself cleaned up. Come downstairs when you're done and I'll try and get you something to eat. I'm not the best cook, but being Italian has to count for something, right?" He joked lightly and saw a ghost of a smile cross Elena's lips. He was making her feel better, and that made him feel better. It broke his heart that she didn't remember the night he confessed his love to her, but she couldn't know. Not then. With a heavy heart he turned to leave, but stopped when he heard Elena's voice from behind him.

"One more thing…"

"Yes?"

"Why did you save me?" She asked, her forehead creased in genuine confusion.

"Do you remember when Stefan and Katherine got stuck in the tomb together and he told me to protect you?" Elena nodded, "I didn't think there was a part he didn't say like 'and stop when I get out of here'. You were screaming, and you were terrified. I was protecting you, Elena. I always will." There was a gentleness in his voice that he didn't expect, and apparently she didn't either because her eyes widened and she sat back slightly, as though she were trying to process what had just happened.

"Anyway," he said, never being good at handling awkward pauses, "I'll be downstairs." He left the room and closed the door behind him, hearing her get up and begin to move around, collecting her clothes and turning on the water in the bathroom. Damon didn't see Stefan where he'd left him in a lump halfway down the stairs, so he ventured cautiously to the first floor.

He walked into the kitchen with the intent of finding something to make for Elena, and saw a note on the refrigerator, held in place by a single silvery magnet.

"_Brother_," it read, "_I had to leave Mystic Falls, I am sure you know why. I hurt Elena and I can't bear to face her knowing what I've done and wondering if she can see me as anything but the monster who attacked her. I know this is not the most advantageous of times to be absent, with Klaus on the hunt for the doppelganger, but I trust you will protect her, as you did this morning from me. Keep her safe, I will return if I feel I can trust myself again. Until then, I wish you the best._"

Damon crushed the note in his fist and leaned on the kitchen counter.

"Not the most advantageous time? Understatement of the century…" Damon looked around absently, wondering how he was supposed to single handedly take care of Elena, when Caroline was having trouble with Matt, there was a present werewolf threat, and Bonnie was trying to figure out the limits of her powers. He didn't realize how long he had been lost in his thoughts until he heard Elena open the bedroom door and start to come down the stairs. Then the only thing on his mind was

"_Dear God, what do I tell her…?_"


	2. Unwelcome Surprises

**Author's Notes: I'm glad that this story is being well received so far. I hope you enjoy chapter two! I'm off on spring break from college until next Sunday, so updates are going to be pretty regular, daily if I can manage it.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing relating to Vampire Diaries or its affiliated characters. This story is written for entertainment purposes only, no copyright infringement is intended.**

_Chapter Two: Unwelcome Surprises_**  
**

Damon quickly pulled ingredients out of cabinets as he heard Elena's footsteps drawing closer, and just before she stepped into the kitchen he made the decision that he wouldn't tell her about Stefan skipping town. Not yet anyway.

"Is Stefan here?" There was a nervous tone in her voice. She had her hands in her back pockets and was rocking forward and backward on the balls of her feet the way she did when there was something on her mind.

"No," Damon replied simply, "take a seat." He gestured toward the barstools on the opposite side of the island in the kitchen where he was chopping up a tomato. There was water heating in a pot on the stove and a shallot sat on the counter next to a jar of red pepper flakes, a pint of cream, and a bottle of vodka.

"What are you making?" Elena asked and folded her arms on the counter.

"Penna alla vodka." He said with an exaggerated Italian accent and made a flourish in the air with the knife in his hand.

"Interesting…" Elena said, a dubious tone in her voice.

"What, you were expecting frozen pizza?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Something like that, yeah." She played with the vervain pendant around her neck as she watched him cut up the shallot and toss it into a pan on the stove.

"Please," he said over his shoulder, "two hundred years and you think I never learned to cook anything?"

"Well, until recently it was normal for the women to do all the cooking."

"Hence why women are impressed by a man who knows how to cook." He smirked devilishly

"Touche." She replied

The room fell silent except for the sound of boiling pasta and vegetables simmering in the pan. Damon added the cream and the vodka, then drank a mouthful out of the bottle.

"Damon!"

"What? It's not like I have cooties," he rolled his eyes, "and even if I did, the alcohol would kill anything. This is strong vodka." He put the bottle away in one of the cabinets above the refrigerator.

"So what was all the racket about this morning?" Katherine asked as she calmly strolled in. Elena tried to hide her look of displeasure. At least the vampire was wearing her own clothes today.

"Leave it alone Katherine." Damon warned and Elena shifted uncomfortably. Katherine caught the movement out of the corner of her eye, looked at the way Damon was resolutely cooking, and then looked around the rest of the kitchen.

"Where's Stefan?" She asked casually, leaning up against the island.

"Somewhere that isn't here." Damon glared at her as he passed, opened the door to the refrigerator, and then threw a blood bag at her. Elena couldn't tell what had happened until it came to rest in the hand that Katherine shot out to catch it, the movement had been too quick for her eyes.

"Do you have coffee?" Katherine asked, narrowing her eyes at Damon. She knew he was keeping something from her.

"Make it yourself." Damon replied curtly and hung the towel he was using over his left shoulder. Katherine turned sideways and slid behind Damon to reach the opposite corner of the kitchen where the coffeemaker was. Elena suddenly felt like a third wheel watching a dysfunctional marriage.

Damon opened another cabinet, then, apparently not finding what he was looking for, said

"I'll be right back. Behave." He pointed first at Katherine, then at Elena. The physical similarity between the two of them making his head spin. As soon as Damon was out of the room, Katherine was in front of Elena with both of her hands flat on the countertop.

"How did you do it?" The vampire asked, an expression of coy curiosity creasing her brow.

"Do what Katherine?" Elena said exasperatedly and leaned back in her chair to stretch. Annoyance crept into Katherine's features and she disappeared abruptly, the next instant standing at Elena's side.

"Manage to get both of them under your spell," Katherine shook her head, "it took me months of seduction and compulsion to get the two of them to where they would give their lives to protect me without a second thought, but you? You just exist."

"Katherine…"

"I came back here for Stefan." Katherine's face bore an expression of abject anger, "I made a deal with John Gilbert to get out of the tomb and I had to choose one of them to save and I chose Stefan. And when he made it perfectly clear that he was so in love with you he wouldn't give me a second glance, I tried Damon. But he pushed me away too. You're so weak, so fragile, so… human. How could Damon love you at all?"

"Damon doesn't love me. He just makes lewd comments to annoy Stefan. He doesn't really care, he probably just doesn't want Stefan to kill him if anything happens to me."

"And that's where you're wrong." Katherine's eyes bored into Elena and she had to look away. It disturbed her to feel like she was looking in a mirror when she saw Katherine's immortal face. Damon walked back into the room and saw Katherine standing over Elena, who had her arms wrapped around herself and an almost pained expression on her face.

"I said behave!" He yelled and the women who could have been twins looked up at him simultaneously

"We were just having some girl talk, Damon." Katherine said sweetly and poured a little blood into a coffee mug, then filled it the rest of the way with the black brew. She turned around wordlessly and gave Elena a look that seemed to say

"_I'm right, you'll see._"

"What were you looking for?" Elena asked

"Parsley. Doesn't really matter though." Damon said and strained the pasta, then poured the sauce over it. He spooned it out onto two plates and set one down in front of her.

"Do you want wine?" He asked

"It's eleven in the morning…" she said incredulously

"And? I have a Grenache that would go great with this."

"You can, I'll just have the pasta, thanks." Elena replied and picked up her fork. She blew on a forkful of the pasta to cool it down and then tried a bite of it.

"Wow…" her eyes widened and her tone clearly said that the pasta was better than she had expected it to be.

"Glad you like it." Damon replied, taking a bite from his dish and then turning around quickly to turn off the burner when he realized the stove was still on.

"Where did you learn to make this?" Elena asked, eating quickly. She hadn't eaten anything yet that day, and the panic of the morning had gotten her adrenaline flowing, and now she was hungry.

"It was just- what the hell?" A loud crash came from the living room followed by a few hard knocking sounds. Damon took off faster than Elena's eyes could see, but a few moments later she caught up to him and saw Katherine standing with a rock in her hand, looking out the broken window trying to catch a glimpse of the thrower.

"What is that?" Elena asked, gesturing to the rock in Katherine's hand.

"Primitive means of communication." She replied and tossed the rock over her shoulder in Damon's direction. He caught it and undid the string holding a piece of paper securely to the rock. He unfolded the note and when he read it, he knit his brows together in an expression of concern

"Well, what does it say?" Elena asked, and Katherine was giving Damon an expectant look as well.

"It says: The Doppelganger Must Die." He said and handed the note to Katherine. Her eyes darted back and forth as she skimmed the paper a few times. She turned it sideways and held it up to the light, then rubbed the corner of the paper between her thumb and forefinger.

"Useless." She said and tossed the note onto the coffee table.

"Why, what were you looking for?" Damon placed his hands on his hips and turned toward Katherine confrontationally

"Any clue as to who it may have come from, Damon, so we know who we're dealing with. It's plain white paper, no watermark, and it was printed off a computer, so there isn't even handwriting to compare."

"But either way, whoever it is knows I'm here, and knows about the curse. That has to narrow it down a bit." Elena said. There was a tense pause in the room.

"But all the vampires in town are on your side," Katherine replied in a smooth voice, "and all the werewolves skipped out. The warlocks are dead. What does that leave?"

"Humans." Damon said

"Exactly," Katherine said and smiled, "and who are the humans in Mystic Falls that know about the curse?"

"Jeremy, Bonnie…" Elena began to list off and Damon interrupted her

"Bonnie's a witch, she's something a little above human and way under vampire in terms of usefulness." Elena rolled her eyes at Damon and Katherine continued speaking.

"And then there's John Gilbert."

"I hate my uncle… father… person just as much as the next girl, but I don't think he came back to Mystic Falls with an olive branch just to turn me over to Klaus."

"It may not be something that he would do, but it would be something that Isobel might do." Katherine said

"I knew I should've killed that bitch." Damon threaded his fingers through his hair in frustration and walked over to the bar to pour himself a bourbon. Elena rolled her eyes and walked toward the stairs.

"Damon, it's eleven thirty in the morning." Katherine admonished

"Really? I'm getting this from both of you now?" He asked as he knocked back the glass of bourbon, hissing at the burn of the alcohol as it slid down his throat.

"Just a word of advice," Katherine whispered suggestively as Damon poured himself another drink.

"What?" He asked roughly, barely looking over his shoulder, knowing he would see her standing with her hip out, her mouth slightly open in a smile, and looking up at him from behind her dark lashes

"Perpetuating your alcohol habit isn't winning any points with her."

"And I care why?" He asked, slowly raising the glass to his lips, letting it hover there as he waited for her response.

"Exactly, Damon. Why do you care?" She said in that infuriatingly manipulative tone with a victorious smile. He cursed under his breath and threw the second glass back, slamming it down on the bar as he turned to follow where Elena had gone up the stairs.

"Don't worry, I'll clean up the window." She called sarcastically after him and he waved a hand in her general direction without even turning around. She waited until he was out of sight before she turned around to look back at the window and the rock that sat in the middle of the rug.

"Fools," she murmured under her breath with a smirk. The glittering shards of glass lied in the dirt outside the window. Neither Damon nor Elena had noticed that the rock hadn't been thrown through the window at all.

Katherine took one more look at the note and smiled to herself

"It's true Elena," she said to no one in particular, "you have to die one way or the other. But you don't have to be gone forever."


	3. Points of Contention

**Author's Note: Since the last part of season two hasn't aired yet, and we don't really know how the doppelganger thing works, I took a few liberties for the sake of the story.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Vampire Diaries, etcetera, etcetera, not making money from the story etcetera, etcetera, entertainment only, enjoy.  
**

"Elena," Damon said as he chased her up the stairs. He found her in Stefan's room shoving clothes into a bag

"I don't want to talk to you Damon." She replied and gave him a glare that chilled him to the bone.

"What is this about?" He asked, throwing his arms open

"You drink to escape. You're an alcoholic and it's disgusting, and I'm not going to stick around here if you keep pouring yourself doubles before noon."

Damon caught one of Elena's shirts as she threw it across the room toward where the canvas grocery bag sat on the bed, already bulging with clothes.

"Give it back." She said fiercely

"Not until you calm down and listen to me." Elena held her glare as she shifted her weight back and onto one hip, crossing her arms in front of her and tilting her head in a way that made her whole body language scream 'I don't want to hear anything you have to say'

"That's… better." Damon struggled and looked at the shirt in his hand. It was the one Katherine had worn when she had pretended she was Elena and kissed him that night in front of the house. He snapped his arm back and threw it on the bed, trying to forget that night, trying to forget how much he wished it had really been Elena.

"I'm waiting, Damon." She said impatiently and drummed her fingers against her arm.

"I just…" Damon fumbled for words, he hadn't planned out what he would say to Elena to mollify her, but he knew he needed to do something so that she wouldn't go out on her own, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but, I needed a moment to just… freak out. This has been a stressful morning, Elena, probably more so for you than for me, but Stefan left me in charge of taking care of you and the thought of doing that alone terrifies me.

"But you aren't alone."

"Caroline is recovering from Tyler and Matt, Bonnie is wrapped up in Jeremy and her magic, Stefan is gone, Rose is gone, Katherine is _here_ which I'm still not happy about because I don't trust her as far as I can throw her… actually that's a bad analogy, I could probably throw her pretty far…"

"Damon!" Elena exclaimed incredulously, "I swear to god you Salvatore boys are a walking episode of Jerry Springer. Stefan was moping around all the time, and you drink yourself into oblivion so that you don't have to deal with what is around you. I'm leaving until you sort yourself out."

"Elena," Damon grabbed her arm as she tried to leave, and he did his best to do it in a way that made it seem as though he needed her to stay, rather than being a controlling gesture of forcibly preventing her from going, "I may be the worst person on the planet, but I've saved your life, and that has to count for something."

"Stefan's saved my life as many times as you have. Even Katherine has saved my life. You'll have to make a better case than that." She grabbed her bag and stormed out, only to be blocked by Katherine at the bottom of the stairs

"I wouldn't leave just yet," she said in an eerily familiar voice

"Oh, what are you going to do? Bite me?" She snapped angrily, having had enough of vampires for the day. She just wanted to go home and be around Jenna and Bonnie and Jeremy and try to forget for two seconds that on top of being a teenager, she had to deal with a set of supernatural problems.

"Tempting, but no. I told you Elena, he loves you. When he first came to Mystic Falls, he wouldn't have protected you at his brother's request. He wouldn't have tried to convince you to stay. He wouldn't be tearing himself up inside because he was never the good enough brother."

"He doesn't believe that. Damon never feels bad about anything, and he only protects me because he's afraid of what Stefan will do to him if he doesn't." Elena tried to move around Katherine, but the vampire smoothly moved to block the door, faster than Elena could see. She rubbed her eyes with her hands and growled in frustration. She hated it when they did that.

"You are going to die, Elena." Katherine said bluntly and without a trace of a smirk, "because that's what happens to humans, they die. You have a choice in front of you. You can die a slow painful death at Klaus's hand, you can survive long enough for the rest of us to kill him and life a long life, growing older and older because Stefan wouldn't want you to be what he had become, or…"

"I don't want to hear your 'or' Katherine. That's out of the question."

"I did it, and it meant that I survived Klaus trying to kill me. Though, if you turned, you would be the end of the Petrova line. The curse could never be broken."

"Isn't your family pretty big by now, won't another doppelganger show up?"

"No, you see there's the issue. The doppelganger can only come from one line of the Petrova family. Since the beginning of record the firstborn has been female. The curse passes from mother to daughter until the doppelganger reappears. There have only been six of us, doppelgangers that is. Born anywhere from five hundred to a thousand years apart. Klaus has tried to break the curse ever since the beginning."

"So what stopped him?" Elena crossed her arms

In the millenia before the birth of Christ they didn't have hospitals and nurses to rush sick babies into special care. The first two doppelgangers died before he could find them because living conditions were so harsh. It was a time when you had ten or twelve children because you expected half of them to die and you needed the other half to help on the family farm."

"And I'm guessing you're number five."

"Correct. The third doppelganger is the only other one that is still around. She made the same decision I did."

"And Klaus didn't hunt her down?"

"Oh, he did," Katherine's lips twisted into a smirk, "But when she became a vampire she was only about a thousand years younger than the Originals themselves. By now she could probably take on one of them and win."

"Interesting. I want to leave now, move." Elena had grown a little bored of Katherine's history lesson and took another step toward the door.

"I don't think so." Katherine said and leaned against the doorframe, blocking the exit.

"Katherine…"

"Elena," she said, her smirk gone, "I offered you the opportunity to escape the curse once. If it presents itself again, you should take it." And then she stepped aside, strolling casually back down into the living room.

Elena wrenched the handle on the door, then slammed the heavy oak portal behind her and walked to her car.

"What was that?" Damon asked as he ran down the stairs into the living room where Katherine sat on the couch with her legs crossed, casually reading.

"Elena just left."

"You let her go out on her own?" He exclaimed, dashing across the room to grab his coat

"Of course, because she's a strong, independent woman and can take care of herself," Katherine said, then scoffed, shaking her head to herself as she heard the door slam again behind her.

Damon took off running, following Elena's car. He kept to the side of the road, out of Elena's line of sight and when he saw that she was going back to her house, he sped ahead and climbed in through her bedroom window and waited for her to get home.

"Jenna? Jeremy?" Elena called when she opened the door. Damon settled himself on her bed and opened a book, casually waving when she walked in

"Damn it Damon!" Elena exclaimed, dropping her bag in surprise and putting a hand over her rapidly beating heart.

"Elena, you can't just run off like that on me. Please, I have to know where you're going or I won't be able to protect you."

"You're acting like a jealous boyfriend, and I've had just about enough of over-protective boyfriend behavior from Stefan, so just back off. Speaking of Stefan, where did he go?"

"I was afraid you would ask that…" Damon trailed off and stood up to face Elena

"I'm waiting." She said and crossed her arms over her chest

"Stefan's gone."

"Gone?" Elena balked, "What do you mean gone?"

"Not dead, if that's what you're worried about. He left. Being the tortured saint he is, he couldn't stand to face you after what he did and he skipped town, and he told me to take care of you, so that's what I plan to do."

"Alright Damon, do you have to always be this close to me to protect me? You have super speed and strength, you can give me some space."

"Well, I seem to have a habit of saving your life when you least expect it, don't I?" He asked and smirked

"Get out." Elena pointed to the window, not the door, because she knew that was how he entered.

"Fine." And before Elena could blink, Damon was gone.

She saw only the fluttering of the curtains in the window and felt a weight pressing down on her heart. This was what she wanted, she wanted Damon to care, but he was being oppressive. She could tell from the look in his eyes that Katherine had been right. She saw the pain when she pushed him away, but she couldn't let him in. She covered her face with her hands and sank down into her bed, feeling tears escaping her eyes between her fingers, and the breathlessness that the lump in her throat created.

"Why?" Elena yelled to no one in particular, "Damon, why can't you just leave me alone."

She didn't know that he had been standing in her front yard, watching the window because he couldn't bring himself to leave yet.

"I love you Elena," he murmured to himself, "and I never want you to be alone."


	4. Road Trip

**Disclaimer: I own no part of the Vampire Diaries, and I am not being compensated for this story, monetarily or otherwise. No copyright infringement is intended.**

**Author's Note: Sorry for the delay on this, I was sick last week and really didn't feel like doing much of anything but sleep. Thank you very much for the encouraging reviews, more are always welcome. Enjoy!**

"And then, he just freaked out on me and left, and I don't know what to do." Caroline dropped the next of countless soggy tissues onto her kitchen counter and buried her face in her hands. Elena and Bonnie had gotten the urgent call to meet her at her house after she had told Matt that she was a vampire and he hadn't taken the news well.

Bonnie reached out a reassuring hand to squeeze Caroline's arm, and she had a sad expression of sympathy on her face. She was the only one of the three of them that was in a relationship where neither person was dead.

"It was probably a lot for him to take in, you know? After the attack and almost dying, to waking up with you telling him you're a vampire and you healed him, especially after what happened to Vicky…" Elena trailed off, remembering that Caroline had been the one who had found Vicky's body. That really shook up Mystic Falls.

"Why is this happening to me? Why is it so hard for me to be with Matt? You and Stefan manage just fine…" Caroline dissolved into sobs again and Elena took a deep breath in. Bonnie noticed her sudden discomfort and asked

"So how are you and Stefan anyway…?"

"Not right now, today is about Caroline." Elena said, brushing her hair behind her ear even as her face turned red with frustration and disappointment. Nonetheless, Bonnie dropped the subject and turned back to the distraught blond vampire.

"You know what you need?" she asked rhetorically, "a day away from Mystic Falls. I think all of us do."

"I can't." Elena said, her voice sounding strained

"You _can't_?" Bonnie asked

"My babysitter," she emphasized the word disdainfully, "doesn't want me leaving his sight. It was all I could do to get the day to myself at home."

"Elena I'm sure Stefan will understand…" Caroline said, looking up at Elena with a tear streaked face in time to see her stand up and cover her face with her hands in exasperation.

"What's wrong, Elena? Is it something to do with Stefan?" Bonnie asked

"Yeah, it's about Stefan," she paused and looked annoyed, "he left, without any word of where he was going, and put Damon in charge of taking care of me. And we all know Damon's method of taking care of someone is to keep constant watch over them. There's no way that I can leave without him finding out, and when he finds out he'll follow us and ruin the point of our girl's day out."

"I could do a spell…" Bonnie's face lit up mischievously

"What kind of spell would throw Damon off?" Caroline asked, playing with the balled up tissues on the counter.

"A clone spell. I would basically create a copy that looks, smells, and acts like you to stay here in Mystic Falls, while the real you goes off and has fun."

"Bonnie, a copy of me already exists. Her name is Katherine."

"But she's impersonated you so many times that Damon and Stefan can see through it now, and besides, do you really trust what she would do in your shoes? I mean she's screwed up some serious stuff before by pretending to be you."

Elena flashed back to the confrontation she had with Damon after Katherine had kissed him and he thought it had been her. She remembered the look of pain on his face when she told him that she couldn't believe he thought she would have kissed him back.

"Yeah I know," she trailed off, "I've just had a really bad day."

"That's it, we're going to Roanoke." Caroline declared and stood up, grabbing her purse off the island.

"Did you miss my whole monologue about my psychotic babysitter?"

"No, I just don't think you have to tell him where you're going. He's a vampire, Elena, not a witch. He won't be able to tell that you've left. We don't have cool psychic powers like that."

Elena picked at her nails for a moment, chewing on her lower lip as she thought

"Alright, just give me a minute to grab my purse and jacket." She smiled reluctantly when she saw how Bonnie and Caroline lit up as she agreed to go.

Elena jogged up the stairs and turned the corner into her room, where the filmy curtains over the window waved gently. She looked at them cautiously, remembering that she had shut her window earlier, and that a vampire's entry of choice seemed to be the windows in her house.

Nonetheless, she turned her back to the window to take her jacket off the hanger on the back of the door and as soon as she did, she heard a familiar voice behind her

"Going somewhere?" So a vampire had come into her room while she'd been downstairs. Wonderful.

"Yes, Caroline, Bonnie and I are all going to Roanoke because we need a break from Mystic Falls."

"Hmm… I don't think so."

"And what say do you have in that, Katherine?"

"Just that you and I will be taking a very different road trip." She crossed the room before Elena could blink and had broken the chain on her vervain pendant. As the charm dropped to the floor, Katherine grabbed her shoulders and looked her square in the eye, Elena tried to fight the haze that fell over her mind, but she was powerless against the compulsion.

"Don't scream, and come with me." Katherine picked Elena up and climbed back out the window. She ran down the street to where a car was parked and set Elena in the passenger seat.

Somewhere within her she knew that she didn't want to be here, she didn't want anything to do with Katherine, but at the same time she didn't want to leave. The engine purred when Katherine started it and roared softly when she accelerated off.

"What do you think is taking her so long?" Caroline asked, tapping her manicured nails on the tile countertop.

"I don't know," Bonnie replied, "maybe she decided to touch up her makeup, or change clothes or something."

"I don't hear her walking around though, and that's what has me worried."

"Do you want to go check on her?"

"Yeah," Caroline set her purse down again and walked over to the base of the stairs, "Elena?"

When she didn't get a response, she started up the stairs

"Elena?" She called again and walked into the bathroom first. The light was off and the counter was dry, she clearly hadn't been in there recently. She walked through the door into Elena's bedroom and eyed the curtains with the same suspicion Elena had, especially since one side of the drapes was outside the room.

Her gaze roamed the room, coming to rest on the necklace that lay forgotten on the floor.

"Oh no…" She said and dropped to one knee to pick it up. The red stone in the heavy metal charm glittered ominously as she held it by the chain.

"Bonnie!" Caroline yelled as she ran back down the stairs

"What? What is it?" Bonnie's brow furrowed in concern

"We have to go to Damon."

"Why?" Bonnie asked, then froze when Caroline held up the pendant

"Elena is gone."


	5. Deception

**I own no part of the Vampire Diaries**

"You can relax now, Elena." Katherine said, releasing the compulsion to remain quiet. Apparently, "don't scream" prevented Elena from doing anything but mumble in a whisper. It was more effective than any gag, Katherine noted, and would have to remember it for later.

"Where are we going?" Was the first thing out of Elena's mouth after she could speak again

"Oh, don't worry, you'll find out."

"Do you have any idea how pissed Damon is going to be when I'm gone and he can't find me? As you pointed out, he cares."

"I left him a note." Katherine said, adjusting her hands on the steering wheel which, Elena noted, had a rearing horse on it. She then wondered where Katherine had found a Ferrari owner to compel into giving her their car, and why she would choose such a flashy vehicle for driving through small town America.

"Great, you know he's going to come after me."

"Oh, I'm counting on it."

* * *

"Why did we have to wait so long to let him know?" Caroline asked as they pulled up in her Dodge charger three hours after they first realized Elena had gone missing.

"Because I had to cancel the clone spell that I made of Elena. We couldn't exactly tell Damon that Elena was gone if he thought that she was brooding upstairs in the boarding house."

"Ugh, whatever." Caroline responded as they neared the front door

"Just go in." Bonnie said and gestured for Caroline to go ahead.

"Damon!" She called cautiously as she walked in.

"What do you want, blondie?" Damon asked without looking up from where he read his paper in the study

"Elena is gone." She closed her eyes, waiting for the hell that was about to be unleashed on her. She felt a wall of air hit her as Damon ran faster than human eyes could see and then strong fingers closed around her throat. She felt splinters from the wall behind her piercing her back as Damon shoved her roughly against it

"She's _what_?" Damon's voice dripped with venom and Caroline forced herself to open her eyes. Damon's face was inches away from hers and she could make out every detail of his cold blue eyes, glinting like chips of ice.

"We were all over at Elena's house. She went upstairs and when she didn't come down, we started to get nervous, so Caroline went up…"

"…and found this on the floor of her bedroom." Caroline held Elena's vervaine pendant by the chain and the bloodred jewel set into it caught the sunlight in the hall.

"You let her out of your sight?" Damon punctuated the sentence by slamming Caroline's head back against the wall again, "Do you know what happened this morning?"

When Caroline didn't answer, Damon kept talking

"Someone threw a rock through the window with a note tied to it. All it said was 'The Doppleganger Must Die' which means that someone is after Elena and now they have her. I never should have let her go."

"You couldn't keep her here, Damon." Caroline choked out from around Damon's ever increasing grip.

"Like hell I couldn't. Have you two forgotten that we have a dungeon in the basement? You seem to have locked me up in there enough times."

"So you were going to keep her prisoner." Bonnie looked at him and raised an eyebrow. Damon paused to consider this and then realized that he probably wouldn't lock up the woman he loved in what was little more than a damp pit in the ground.

"Well, no…" Damon paused, confused, then pulled his hand back from Caroline's throat and let her drop to the ground. Bonnie rushed over to her friend, shooting Damon a dirty look as she did so.

"I guess there is only one option," he said, "we go after her."

"Damon are you crazy?"

"You don't even know who took her." Caroline and Bonnie expressed their concerns at the same time

"Do you have a better idea?" He roared at them.

"I think maybe you should think things through before you just go running off." Bonnie said, still brushing Caroline's hair back in a comforting, motherly gesture.

"Just an idea, Damon, but have you seen Katherine lately?"

"She should be right…" Damon trailed off and then bolted up the stairs. Caroline and Bonnie heard a door bang open upstairs and then a crash as Damon presumably knocked something over in frustration. He appeared a split second later holding a slip of paper in his hand.

"Give me that," Caroline snatched the paper out of Damon's hand, "_I took Elena on a little road trip, she'll be safe with me. –K_"

"That insufferable, lying, double-crossing BITCH!" Damon's tone steadily rose until he ended by punching a hole clean through the wall from the hallway into the study.

"So, where would Katherine go?" Bonnie asked when Damon's breathing slowed and he turned back to face them

"I haven't the faintest clue. She's over five hundred years old, she probably has connections all over the world." He paused, then shook his finger in the air as he remembered something, "But she probably won't call them in until she absolutely has to. She'll fend for herself as long as possible, which means there will be a trail of compulsions that we can follow to her."

"Damon,"

"What, vampire Barbie?" Caroline gritted her teeth at the insult, but let it slide

"You just said Katherine has been around for over five hundred years. You looked for her for almost a century and a half and you couldn't find her because she didn't want to be found. What makes you think this will be easy?"

"She left a note, which means she wants to be found. Which means she will have been deliberately sloppy with her compulsions. There will be stolen car reports, confusion at airports because boarding passes have already been claimed."

"But you know you'd be walking into a trap." Bonnie retorted

"Yes, well, unfortunately with Katherine, most of the time that's the only way to get things done."

"Stolen Ferrari reported yesterday in Appomattox." Caroline said, looking up from the screen of her smartphone, "and 'two sisters arrested at Norfolk International Airport for trying to go through security with invalid boarding passes. Apparently the e-tickets had already been redeemed, yet the agent printed the passes anyway. Nothing has been found about the people that stole the boarding passes.' Looks like TSA is going to have a harder time covering their asses than they did with the X-ray photos scandal.

"So, let's get our asses to France. What airport does that breaking news report say the plane was bound for?"

"Charles de Gaulle Airport." Caroline replied, scrolling down farther through the article.

"Wait." Bonnie said

"What? Katherine is getting further and further away with Elena as we speak."

"The note said she was taking Elena on a road trip, but there was an incident at an airport. So, do we believe that the note is lying and she's on a flight to France right now with Elena, or do we believe that the airport is a ruse to make you go a day out of your way so that she can get away?"

"We already agreed she wanted to be found, and that she was going to leave a trail for us to follow into her trap. Why would she throw a red herring at the last second?"

"You know her better than we do, Damon." Caroline said and set down her phone, "you tell us what we're doing."

"The two of you grab clothes from Katherine's room upstairs, you guys are all pretty much the same size. We're getting on a plane to France today. But we're not going through Norfolk, we're going through Richmond."

"Why?" Caroline asked as she followed Damon upstairs

"Well, let's see, it's a few hours closer than Norfolk? And because that's where the family's plane is."

"The what?" Bonnie asked, stopping in the middle of the hallway.

"Really Bonnie? Haven't you read enough Twilight to know that vampires love to use eternity to make ridiculous amounts of money and spend it on things that are only useful in a handful of situations, like yachts and planes and houses in the forest with classic cars?" Damon retorted harshly before continuing up the stairs to his room where Caroline could still hear him. He was throwing things into a bag whilst talking on the phone in an urgent tone.

"_Yes. The hangar in Richmond. Yes, you need to be there. One hour. Goodbye."_

"Caroline, come on." Bonnie tugged on her sleeve and pulled her into the room Damon had gestured to as Katherine's. The bedspread was trimmed with lace and had an intricate pattern of pink and red roses. The curtains in the window were also lace and held back by bright red ribbons. It was clear that this was the room where Katherine had stayed in 1864 and that very little had been altered since, including the contents of the wardrobe.

Caroline and Bonnie opened the double doors of the wardrobe to find one half hung with designer clothes at the cutting edge of high-end fashion and the other half with bloomers, corsets, pettiskirts and full dresses.

"Just take all the modern stuff." Bonnie said, pulling out an old dusty leather satchel she found at the back of the wardrobe.

"Can we use a suitcase instead?" Caroline pointed to the set of matching Louis Vuitton luggage in the back corner of the room. Bonnie looked back at Caroline and said

"I call dibs on the carryon." And Caroline smiled

While the two were still folding the clothes into the suitcase when Damon appeared at the door

"Are you two still packing?"

"I'm not just going to shove all this into a bag, Damon." Caroline said, dropping a folded silk blouse in on top of the rest of the contents of the suitcase, "I'm sure you folded your designer T-shirts before shoving them in your… Armani bag."

"Make it fast, we have to get going to Richmond."

"Good thing it's close. You thinking we'll make up the time we lost?"

"They're already on the plane, they have a four hour lead. I have no idea how Katherine got to Norfolk so fast."

"She did steal a Ferrari, Damon."

"Yeah, probably because that was the best thing she could find. I'm betting she didn't manage to get a Ferrari Enzo, though, that's one of the top ten fastest cars in the world and I doubt anyone around here could afford one, so it's pretty unlikely she would have been able to get a Bugatti, McLaren, or Pagani either. Nevermind that most of those are European cars."

"Damon, skip the gearhead lecture. No one cares." Caroline said, zipping up the suitcase and pulling it off the bed. "We're ready."

"Let's go."

It was nearly a hundred miles to Richmond from where the boarding house sat on the edge of Mystic Falls, but it took less than forty five minutes with the way Damon was driving. Bonnie finally had to close her eyes to keep from seeing the way he weaved in and out of traffic, sometimes on the shoulder, barely avoiding obstacles. The engine groaned every now and then from the abuse Damon was putting it through.

"I didn't know my car could go that fast," Caroline said, watching the speedometer drop as they reached the traffic around Richmond airport.

"I'm just glad you don't drive a Prius."

Caroline gave a meager laugh and looked back to Bonnie in the back seat

"I think you can open your eyes now."

"Yeah, we're almost to the hangar." Damon stopped the car, handed the keys to a uniformed man standing outside the car and said

"Take good care of her," before another man walked up and said in an urgent tone

"This way Mr. Salvatore, and guests."

The three were bustled toward a plane with steps that folded down from the side of the fuselage. Damon walked up first, and took his sunglasses off as soon as he got inside. Caroline and Bonnie followed behind, pausing just inside the aircraft to take in the luxury.

"Well, what do you think?" Damon asked, spreading his arms and gesturing to the leather seating and full bar.

"Beats the hell out of riding coach." Bonnie murmured and Caroline nodded in agreement.

* * *

Elena stared resolutely out the window of the airplane despite the fact that they were over the Atlantic ocean at night and there was nothing to see. Out of the corner of her eye she saw an olive toned hand reach over and pull open her tray table. The same hand then set down a narrow flute of champagne.

"Drink up, Elena." Katherine's voice came from the seat next to her, but she didn't respond. She then felt a vice like hand grip her jaw and turn her head around to look at her, but Elena closed her eyes.

"Open your eyes, or I will start hurting you." Elena did nothing for a moment until Katherine's thumb dug into her salivary gland, making pain explode along her jaw. Her eyes flew open in surprise and were instantly captured by Katherine's compulsion.

"Drink, and relax. Have fun, I'm not taking you to your doom, no matter what Stefan and Damon may tell you."

In spite of herself, Elena felt her tension ease. The steward had just brought the champagne and Elena figured there wouldn't be anything in it that would confuse her other than the alcohol. She reached out and picked up the flute, raising it in a brief toast to Katherine before bringing it to her lips. The sweet, bubbly liquid had a tinge of almond flavor to it and Elena decided that as far as kidnappings went, riding in first class with a vampire who compelled the stewards to bring you alcohol underage was the least objectionable she'd ever been through.


	6. Cafe au sang

**Author's Note: Thank you for your patience, I would have tried to update yesterday except for the fact that I was in the part of the country that lost power, so, here's the chapter one day late. Thank you for your understanding.**

**Disclaimer: I own no part of the Vampire Diaries and have written this story purely for fun.**

Elena stared out the window at the ever-approaching ground and her heart beat faster as the plane touched down. She didn't like the jarring feeling it always brought.

"_Bienvenue __à Paris_; Welcome to Paris, Elena."

"Katherine…" Elena began to speak, but the vampire talked over her like she hadn't heard

"The first thing we need to do is to get some coffee into you. Oh you're just going to LOVE the coffee here Elena if you can drink the swill that Damon makes. And then we'll have to go shopping…"

"Katherine." Elena interrupted the ramblings of the woman that sounded much more like an overexcited best friend than a maniacal kidnapper.

"What?" Katherine asked a little too innocently

"Coffee? Shopping? No dungeons and vampires trying to kill me?"

"That part comes later Elena, we can't have you meeting the other doppleganger when you look so jet lagged and… frumpy."

"Excuse me? Frumpy?"

"You're asking too many questions Elena, just enjoy yourself in France."

"Why, what are you going to do to me?"

"I thought that was obvious," Katherine's expression darkened, "we're going to kill you to save your life."

* * *

"What do you think Elena is doing right now, Damon?" Caroline asked, sipping her third glass of champagne

"Do you mean what do I think Elena is doing or what do I think is being done to Elena?"

"Well, given her past history, I suppose the second is more likely…" she trailed off uncertainly

"I just hope we can get there in time to do something." Bonnie said. She was the only one of the group who wasn't drinking, since she didn't have a vampire's metabolism to combat the effects of the alcohol and didn't want to be addled in the event of a werewolf attack, a vampire ambush, a secret council of witches, or anything else the supernatural world had to offer.

"I just hope Katherine or Elena will have left us a clue when we get there. Based on the time stated in the article about the boarding passes, it looks like we left about two hours behind them." Damon said, swirling the bourbon around in his glass.

"Is there any way to get the plane to go faster?"

"Not unless you can fly a plane with magic, because otherwise we'd run out of fuel and crash into the Atlantic, and that wouldn't do much to help Elena."

"How close are we cutting it?" Caroline asked, a note of panic in her voice.

"Not very. We bought a plane that could fly to Italy, for obvious reasons, and since France is closer it shouldn't be a problem. That still doesn't mean we can push the engines too hard. Too bad you can't teleport."

"I've been looking through the grimoires, both Emily's and the ones that Luca and his father collected. There's a little bit of stuff on teleportation spells, but they have some… spotty results."

"And by that you mean…"

"I mean that the objects that were to be teleported ended up as little more than spots on the ground."

"Ah, so no teleporting for us then."

"No… I might be able to send Elena a message so she knows that we're coming and to help leave a path for us to follow."

"Don't you need candles or something for that?" Damon asked

"I just need something of hers…" Caroline interrupted by holding up the vervain pendant, "… that you don't mind me destroying."

"Do it." Damon said and Caroline and Bonnie looked at him incredulously.

"Damon…" Bonnie started, but Caroline talked over her, putting the pendant away as she did so

"That was a gift to her from Stefan."

"I realize that, Blondie, but it's the only thing we have. It's not doing her any good right now, and if she makes it out of this alive I'll get her a new one."

"Alright…" Caroline said reluctantly and handed the necklace over to Bonnie.

"Let's do this in the bathroom, it could get messy." Bonnie stood up and walked toward the only bathroom on the plane, but because it was the only one, it was slightly bigger than the closet sized lavatories on commercial airliners.

Bonnie placed the pendant in the stainless steel sink and held her hands so her thumbs and forefingers formed a triangle. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before beginning to mumble in something that sounded like Latin.

The pendant began to spark and smoke, then orange flames erupted from the sink and Damon and Caroline took a step away. Bonnie only furrowed her brow and concentrated harder on the incantation. When she finally opened her eyes a trickle of blood ran down over her lip from one of her nostrils and Caroline handed her a tissue from the panel of the lavatory.

Damon waved his hand through the smoke and looked at the black scorch mark in the sink where the pendant used to be.

"What exactly did you tell her?" He asked

"I told her that the three of us were on our way, about two hours behind them, and that we were going to come find her, but she had to help us, somehow."

"You didn't give her any suggestions?"

"I couldn't be too specific. Elena is smart, Damon, she'll be able to do something."

"Alright, I hope you're right. They should have landed about half an hour ago, so we have about two more hours before the real hunt begins."

* * *

Elena allowed herself to be pulled along by Katherine. She realized with a pang of sadness that she had resigned herself to death so many times, that she accepted the news that she would die to save her own life with the blitheness worthy of hearing there would be rain the following week. She knew panic would set in later, but presently she rather enjoyed the atmosphere of Paris, the musical language floating in the air, and the bustle of the city.

Still, she was a bit nervous and picked at her fingernails even as they sat down in an outdoor café and a young man came over.

"_Bonjour, mademoiselles. Vous desirez le café?_"

"_Oui,_" Katherine replied fluidly, "_Et deux croissants_."

Elena felt the world shift slightly and her head grew fuzzy, it was as though she had become drunk all of a sudden, and then she heard Bonnie's voice in her mind.

"_Damon, Caroline and I are on our way, two hours behind. Help us find you_." And then the world righted itself and she heard the waiter asking "Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle?" To see if she was alright, and she heard Katherine say something in return that made him nod his head once and leave the table quickly.

"What's wrong, twin?"

"I am not your twin, Katherine. And I'm fine, just got a little case of vertigo, that's all." She replied and continued to pick at the skin around her fingernails, mulling over in her mind how to help Damon find her. A sharp sting of pain brought her out of her musings and she looked down to find she'd torn away a hangnail on her thumb.

"Well now you've done it," Katherine said tossing a cloth napkin over to Elena, "didn't anyone tell you it isn't ladylike to bite your fingernails."

Elena didn't say anything, but took the napkin and wrapped her bleeding digit in it. Then the idea came to her. She squeezed the side of her thumb so a bead of blood welled up and then wiped it on the underside of the table. Damon would have no trouble following a trail of her blood to wherever Katherine was taking her.

The waiter came back with a glass of sparkling water, two small cups of coffee, and two croissants.

"_Merci_," Katherine said with a smile and the waiter gave a slight bow before leaving the table.

In the shadows across the street a tall figure looked at the table where Elena sat, fighting the urge to run across the road and rip her throat out.


	7. Trail of Blood

**I don't own anything related to Vampire Diaries**

"Go on, Elena, eat." Katherine gestured to the croissant on Elena's plate

"No thank you, I'm not hungry."

"First rule of being kidnapped," Katherine punctuated the sentence by taking a sip of her black coffee, "eat when you can, not when you want to. You never know when or if you'll get another meal." Katherine's eyes glinted malevolently and Elena picked up the croissant with her unwounded hand and took a bite. The pastry was sweet and flaky, but it sucked Elena's mouth dry of moisture, and she struggled hard to swallow, all the while picking at the raw flesh of her thumb with her fingernail to keep it bleeding, so she could leave a trail for Damon to follow. She just prayed Katherine wouldn't notice.

"Is there any cream for the coffee?" Elena asked, eyeing the black brew suspiciously. Katherine sighed and then raised her hand in the air. The waiter rushed over and Katherine gestured toward Elena and said

"Du lait pour l'autre."

"Oui, mademoiselle." The waiter said and scurried off, returning a few minutes later with a small pitcher of milk.

"Merci." Elena mumbled quietly, using the most minimal of French which she had gleaned from the Madeline cartoons she watched as a child. Once the waiter walked away, Elena asked Katherine

"Exactly how many languages do you know?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Just trying to find out where I might be headed next. I have no doubt that you brought me here just to take me somewhere else." Elena replied and raised her coffee mug to her lips, taking a sip. She couldn't tell what Katherine was so impressed about. It still tasted like coffee.

"Obviously my first language was Russian. Then I picked up English and French, and I learned a little Italian so I could impress Giuseppe Salvatore. I considered learning an Asian language, like Japanese, or Mandarin, but I haven't been that way in centuries, so it would be a wasted effort. Learning a language takes a long time, especially if you want to be proficient. Now hurry up and eat, we have places to be."

"I thought the French took the time to savor their meals."

"That's the only reason I didn't ask you to pick up your croissant and take it with you. We left a little later than I would have liked. I'm sure your white knight is shortly behind, trying to find you."

_I can only hope_ Elena thought to herself and took large bites of her croissant, so much so that it was difficult to chew. She washed down the mouthfuls with coffee and she was about to put the last of it in her mouth when in the blink of an eye, the world whirled around her, and she felt gravity fail her. When she opened her eyes next, she was on the roof of the three story building which housed the café on the ground floor, and she felt cold arms circling her tightly.

At the same time, her ears registered a crashing sound from below, and she had just enough time to crash her bloodied hand into the lip on the edge of the roof and make it look accidental. She looked up from the twisted wreckage of the rail of the outdoor seating area into a pair of eyes identical to her own, except for a world-weary and devious glint.

"Looks like someone is after you faster than we thought. It can't be Damon yet, and it can't be my contact. We're going now." Katherine said in a quiet, calculated tone, and Elena felt her stomach drop as Katherine sprung into the air again, jumping away over rooftops with Elena cradled in her arms.

Every time they landed, she made an effort to let her hands hit any hard surface they could find, it wasn't hard, because the impact of the landing jarred her around. She winced at the pain, and midflight she looked at her hands that were becoming increasingly covered in scrapes and bruises, but she didn't care. She needed Damon to find her as soon as the three of them landed.

Eventually, Katherine came to a stop and looked back the way they came. Elena surreptitiously dabbed another dot of blood onto the masonry, and tried to calm her quickly beating heart.

"I think we lost them, for now, but we have to get moving faster. We're taking the metro."

Elena's heart sank. There was no way he'd be able to track her then. She tried one last-ditch plan

"Fine, Katherine, can you just tell me where we're going?"

"Over the river, Notre Dame." Katherine said and dragged Elena by the hand down the steps of the metro station. She left Elena alone for all of five seconds in order to compel the security guard, but that was all she needed. She used her teeth to reopen her bloodied cuticle, and smeared a dab of crimson over the dot for the Notre Dame station on the subway map before Katherine's vice-like grip encircled her wrist again and pulled her away through the turnstile.

"Hang on, and keep any valuables in your front pockets." Katherine said and snaked her arm around one of the vertical metal poles. Elena copied her, but the jolt of the train starting still threw her body against the pole. She'd only ridden a subway train once, in New York, when she was on an eighth grade trip.

"Dear God, I hope you never have to go to Prague, you'd never survive the subway there. They reach full speed in under 5 seconds." Katherine said snidely and Elena simply glared at her.

"You know, if you're going to kill me, you could at least be a little nicer to me in the meantime."

"Kill… that's such a negative word. I'm trying to save you, turn you."

"Well, I have to have," Elena looked around surreptitiously, then whispered, "vampire blood in my system, and I'll never drink it willingly."

"Oh, Elena," Katherine said in her typical condescending tone, as though speaking with a stubborn child, "You already have."

"What?" Elena's hand flew to her throat and she felt sick, though she knew that throwing up now wouldn't do anything to get the blood out of her now.

"I slipped it into your coffee at the restaurant." Katherine smiled, "Sorry I had to spoil your first impression of French coffee."

"I knew there was something wrong. It tasted like it was brewed in a rusty old electric percolator."

"Rusty huh? Looks like I'll have to start watching my diet."

The train began to slow and a woman's voice speaking rapid French came over the loudspeaker in the train.

"That's us." Katherine said and turned to face the door.

"We're here already?"

"No, this is just where we change lines. We have to do this two more times before we're actually on the right metro to the Notre Dame station."

Elena silently prayed that her blood wouldn't be wiped away from the sign before Damon, Bonnie and Caroline could find her. Even as she thought it, their plane was touching down.

* * *

The two vampires and witch hurried down the steps of the jet, which Damon left to the compelled pilot to take care of, and looked up at the sky.

"Okay, so, now where do we go?" Caroline asked after a few minutes of Damon looking back and forth in different directions.

"If I know Katherine and her flair for the dramatic, they went somewhere on the Champs Elysees first. I'm just having a bit of a hard time remembering what direction that is. It's been a few decades since I searched France for Katherine."

"Let's just pick a direction and go, we can find it, or someone to ask about it later."

"Wait," Damon said and grabbed a passing man in a security vest, "Ou est le Champs Elysees?" He asked, with an accent that anyone would recognize was terrible, but the man understood him anyway, and pointed off into the distance.

"Thank you. Uh, merci." He said uncomfortably and sent the man on his way before turning to see a snickering Bonnie and Caroline

"If we were in Italy, this would be no problem at all. But no, Katherine had to pick France. Now, who's going to carry the witch?"

"Caroline." Bonnie said without a moment's hesitation, and Damon gave her a mock-offended look

"Look Damon," she continued, "I don't care that you're suddenly all about protecting Elena and trying to do good. People never change, especially those who have centuries to get set in their ways. I don't trust you, Damon. And I might never. If someone is going to carry me, since I obviously can't keep up with you guys, it's going to be Caroline."

With that, the blonde walked over and picked up the witch as easily as if she weighed as much as a housecat, and looked at Damon expectantly. He disappeared from Bonnie's sight, and the next thing she knew, she was hurtling along at a frightening speed, the world blurring around her. She had to close her eyes, and she rested her head against Caroline's solid shoulder that didn't move, despite the pace of the run.

A few minutes later, she felt the world come to a stop, and Caroline set her down on her feet, offering her an arm to steady herself. When she looked up, she saw the Arc de Triomphe and stretching before her, wide lanes going each direction, was the Champs Elysees.

"I am never going to get used to that," Bonnie mumbled under her breath

"Trust me, I'm still getting used to it." Caroline replied.

The two girls both looked at Damon, who once more had his head raised and was looking around, trying to find where Katherine might have gone.

"Katherine is vain, she might have dragged Elena along to go shopping somewhere. Or maybe she took Elena to get food, can't have her human dying before she delivers her to whoever she has contacted here. Or maybe…" Damon was mumbling under his breath as he looked back and forth down the Champs Elysees.

"Speaking of food…" Bonnie said

"Why didn't you eat anything on the plane?" Damon turned around to ask her

"You weren't exactly prepared for a long flight, and I got really tired of pretzels and peanuts. Just let me get a roll or something at a café. There's one right there." Bonnie pointed to a black and white sign hanging over an awning about 500 feet away.

"Fine, but as soon as you get your roll, we're going after Elena, we've wasted enough time as it is."

"I promise."

The three of them walked up and sat down at a table outside and waited for the server to come over.

"Bonjour, bienvenue à notre café. Les mademoiselles avant l'homme."

Bonnie and Caroline looked back and forth between eachother, neither one of them understanding very much French. Damon sighed and rolled his eyes

"La blonde voudrait avoir un café, La fille avec les cheveux noir voudrait avoir un croissant, et du lait. Rien pour moi."

The waiter nodded and left.

"Thanks a lot for both of you taking Spanish in high school. My French isn't the greatest either, certainly not as good as Katherine's, she lived here for a decade or so. Pick up Rosetta stone and learn basic tourist in as many languages as you can." Damon sneered and sat back

"What if we don't have time for that?"

"Listen, Barbie, you have eternity. You have no excuse." That shut Caroline up, and the waiter returned with a black coffee, and Bonnie's croissant and milk, and nothing for Damon, just as he'd instructed.

"Merci." Damon said, and Bonnie and Caroline mimicked him. The waiter smiled back at Caroline, then his eyes widened and he backed quickly away from the table.

"Your eyes." Damon warned her venomously. Only then was it that Caroline noticed the faint smell of blood lingering in the air and closed her eyes, calming herself, and when she opened them again, the red stain had disappeared, and the veins around them no longer rippled.

"Why did that happen? Did somebody bleed here?" Caroline asked in a frantic whisper, then raised her coffee mug to her lips, the scent of the black brew masking the aroma of blood which, once she noticed, was growing to consume more and more of her concentration.

"Not just anyone," Damon said, "Elena. You told her to help us find her, Bonnie, and she left us a trail that is a hell of a lot better than breadcrumbs. Hurry up and eat. We have to get out of here."

Bonnie finished the croissant in two bites and gulped down the milk to swallow the bread.

"I'm done, let's go."

Damon left a ten euro bill on the tabletop, and jumped up to the roof. He saw a smudge of red on the lip of the building, and in the next moment, Caroline appeared next to him carrying Bonnie.

"It leads over the rooftop. Katherine must have had to carry Elena away from there like you're carrying Bonnie, in a series of huge jumps. The question is why. Who was Katherine running from?"

"Who isn't Katherine running from Damon?" Caroline asked snidely, "She's been running ever since she died. From Klaus, from responsibility, from you and Stefan, and from lovers who want revenge. Some of those aren't mutually exclusive."

The remark stung Damon, but not nearly as much as it would have when he'd first found out that Katherine had been alive and free this whole time, and had simply not cared enough to find him. It was just a reminder that he was always second to Stefan. First with Katherine, and then again when the doppleganger reappeared in Elena.

"Let's just go." He said and jumped away in the direction from which he could sense Elena's blood. Ever since the first time he'd met her, the scent of it had been imprinted on his mind. There was no way he could forget it.

After several leaps across rooftops, he followed her trail along a railing and down into a metro station, where there was no continuation of the scent.

Caroline and Bonnie came to a stop behind him, and he looked at the turnstiles ahead, defeated

"They got on a train. They got on a train on the Paris Metro. How the HELL are we supposed to find them now?" He kicked the corner of the cinderblock wall and knocked a large chunk off onto the floor, drawing a glance from one of the security guards, who was thin and wiry even for a human.

"Désolé," Damon apologized in a tone that was anything but genuine and covered his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"Damon, come look at this." Caroline said from the opposite side of the metro entrance.

"What?"

"Look at the map." She said and pointed with one manicured finger to the Notre Dame station. Only the barest smudge of red remained.

"She told us where they went." He murmured, "Yes!" He threw his fist into the air and ran over to the security guard who eyed him after he kicked the wall

"You are going to let the three of us on the train, and you're going to forget that you saw me break the wall."

"Yes, absolutely." The guards said and stepped away from the turnstile, which they jumped over instead of going through, and made their way down to the boarding platform of the subway.


	8. Elixir of Life

**I do not own any part of The Vampire Diaries, this story was written purely for entertainment purposes.**

When the train came to a stop at the Notre Dame de Paris station, Katherine grabbed Elena and dragged her roughly off the train. She'd been absently scratching the cuts on her hands so that they wouldn't scab over, and it seemed that in the heat of fleeing whoever had caused the scene at the café, Katherine hadn't noticed Elena leaving a trail.

She realized that by doing so, she was leaving a trail for the mystery attacker too, but she needed Damon to be able to find her. When they emerged above ground, Elena had just enough time to catch a glimpse of the majestic cathedral before Katherine had swept her up and jumped away again.

Elena repeated her method of letting her hands flail as they landed, certain that she was going to fracture something if Katherine landed too hard.

On the fifth landing away from the train station, Elena's hand collided with a rail atop a building, and in addition to the clang of metal, there was a loud crack that split the air like a gunshot, and pain knifed up Elena's arm, causing her to let out a sharp scream.

Katherine stopped and looked down at her, seeing that the back of her left hand was sharply indented, and a bone pressed against the skin of her palm, threatening to pierce through.

"Goddammit, you humans are so breakable." She said with similar disdain as if a dog had made a mess in her living room. Her eyes flashed red and vein-rimmed for a moment and she tore her wrist with her teeth, putting the wound to Elena's mouth. The human kept her mouth tightly closed until Katherine looked her in the eyes and said firmly

"Drink." Elena parted her lips obediently and felt the cold blood flowing into her mouth. Disgusted, she couldn't pull away, and felt completely aware of what was happening despite the fog of compulsion filling her mind that was stamping down the desire to wrench her head away and gag.

Warmth filled her left hand and she could feel the bone knitting itself back together. The abrasions and cuts on her hands shrank and disappeared, leaving only smooth, unmarred skin behind.

"I suppose it doesn't matter…" Katherine trailed off and set Elena on her feet, who swayed for a moment before regaining her balance. The wild jumps through the air had made her a little unsteady and nauseous.

"What doesn't matter?"

"I was going to feed you my blood anyway, I just hadn't planned on it being that way. I also wanted to dress you in something nicer before you met Aiana, but I suppose that can't be helped."

Elena felt panic because she remembered that Katherine had told her that she would kill her in order to save her life, and that meant making her a vampire. But at the same time she also felt relief because they were at their destination, and Damon would be able to find her.

Katherine walked over to the door that led down from the roof and wrenched it open, the rusty hinges squeaking. The steps led down in a gentle curve, and the view opened into a spacious loft that had large windows on every wall.

A woman stepped out of a doorway across the room and to Elena's surprise, she didn't look exactly like herself and Katherine. From the fine lines that were around her eyes, Elena guessed her to be about thirty years old. She the supposed that it wasn't all that shocking. After all, Aiana would have had to have lived long enough to marry and have children. She just wondered how long Klaus had chased her before she'd made the decision to turn.

"Aiana." Katherine said, smiling, and opening her arms for a hug

"Katerina." They embraced for a long moment and kissed eachother's cheeks before they pulled apart and Aiana looked Elena up and down.

"It's remarkable."

"I know, isn't it? I'm sorry I couldn't give her appearance some work before bringing her to you.

"Nonsense, it's fine. After all, neither of us had all these modern beauty treatments when we were her age. Shall we get down to business then?"

"Uh, excuse me?" Elena interrupted, "what business is that exactly?"

"Remember that I said I was going to kill you to save your life? We've got a witch who thinks that she can do it without turning you into a vampire, since I know that you don't want that yet. Maybe ever. Of course you realize that you won't be able to be with Stefan or Damon after a few more years. People will start calling you a cradlerobber."

"You're trying to manipulate me into turning, and it's not going to work. There are experiences that I want to have before I die, regardless of whether it's permanent or not."

"Having kids isn't all it's cracked up to be." Aiana said

"It isn't just that. And if I was with Stefan or Damon I wouldn't be having kids anyway. Vampires can't have children, I know that."

"Alright, enough of your yapping." Katherine said and locked eyes with Elena as she walked forward, "Undress and lie down on the table over there, and wait patiently for us to shackle you down."

Elena's eyes went blank, and she robotically followed Katherine's orders, leaving her two day old dirty clothes in a pile on the floor of the loft. She laid down on the table and positioned her wrists and ankles in the shackles that were bolted to the thick slab of wood.

Aiana walked over and closed the hinges, locking each with a heavy padlock and tugging on them before moving on to the next limb.

"When and if Damon finds you, he won't be able to break you out. I made this sturdy enough that I would have a hard time destroying it. And I have four hundred years on him." Katherine murmured as she ran her hand over one of the steel padlocks.

Elena wanted nothing more than to thrash against the bindings, even if it was useless, but she laid still, if only for the fact that she knew if she struggled, she would start bleeding from her wrists and ankles, and she knew better by now than to willingly bleed when she was surrounded, or soon to be, by vampires.

Katherine kept talking as Aiana tied a tourniquet above Elena's elbow, the human wincing as the rubber pulled tightly on her skin. The vampire tapped the crease of her joint and waited for the vein to swell before she inserted a medical needle into it and clicked a test tube into the reservoir. Elena had held her head up, watching what Aiana was doing, but when she saw her blood shooting into the tube, she laid her head back and stared at the ceiling, trying to forget what was happening. She'd always had a hard time with seeing her blood drawn, even when it was her father that was doing it.

"Raechelle!" Aiana called as she placed a gauze patch over the needle site and pressed down hard as she pulled it out, then wrapped Elena's entire elbow in medical tape to hold the gauze over the wound. A young girl with olive skin stepped out of the doorway which Aiana herself had emerged from, and waited patiently for further instructions.

Elena turned her head to look at Raechelle while Aiana gathered the vials of blood she had drawn from Elena.

"Fetch your cauldron and herbs, we have the blood ready. She has already imbibed from Katherine."

Raechelle nodded wordlessly and turned back into the room. Elena saw that she had thick, wavy hair that fell far down her back, almost to her buttocks, and her eyes had been slightly slanted. From this she guessed that the girl was partly Oriental, but she had never encountered a witch who hadn't been African-American.

She returned a minute later with a heavy black cauldron that was twice the size of a soccer ball on a wheeled cart that had several bunches of herbs laid out on it, as well as some questionable looking liquids, some containing what appeared to be obscure body parts.

She lit a fire under the cauldron stand and poured into it from a tall pitcher. As she let this heat for a long while, she tore off the flowers, stems and leaves of particular bunches of herbs which she waved her hand over before selecting, making sure she was choosing the correct ones. Aiana placed five vials of blood on the tray next to the cauldron and Raechelle nodded. She continued with the herbs for several minutes more, then stirred the cauldron three times clockwise and four times counterclockwise.

Raechelle added a single vial of blood and stirred the concoction again, setting a small timer next to the cauldron and walked back into the back room. It seemed like an eternity had passed for Elena by the time the shrill bell of the timer rang. The young witch came back out and shut off the ringing, then ladled the mixture through a strainer into a pewter goblet that was waiting on the second shelf of the cart.

Elena saw steam rising from the goblet as Raechelle handed it to Aiana, who began approaching Elena. She hadn't struggled before but now she didn't care. She thrashed against the bonds and turned her head frantically, eyes closed to keep one of the vampires from instantly compelling her.

She felt Aiana's strong fingers work her mouth open. She tried to bite down to no avail, and screamed as loud as she could with the vampire's fingers pressing down on her tongue.

At that moment, the door leading to the roof burst open.


	9. Disembodied

**I own no part of the Vampire Diaries**

"Stefan?" Elena asked, shocked. His face held the swollen veins of the transformation into a monster, and he didn't relax when he saw her. In fact, he appeared to be set more on edge by her presence.

Because the smell of her blood was everywhere from the brewing potion.

Faster than Elena could see, Stefan was only half as far away as he had been a moment earlier, and was being firmly restrained by Aiana. His attempts at movement didn't even shake her arms. The oldest vampire gestured with her head toward Katherine, who flashed over and knocked Stefan unconscious with a single blow to the back of his head.

"No!" Elena exclaimed, "don't hurt him!"

"If I remember right, Elena, Stefan attacking you and leaving are the reasons that Damon is – was protecting you. I don't think he'll much care if we manhandle Stefan a bit." Katherine tossed Stefan to one side and brushed her hands off.

"Now, since we were so rudely interrupted." Aiana said, and picked up the goblet from where she'd set it prior to keeping Stefan from rushing forward toward Elena.

"Wait," Katherine held up a hand, "You don't know these brothers. We're due for another miraculous entry any time now."

A few minutes later, Elena began to hear the sounds of someone descending the stairs, and was greeted by the sight of Damon, Bonnie, and Caroline.

Damon took one look at her and got a look of rage on his face.

"Don't!" Elena tried to warn, but he had already moved to attempt to rescue Elena. It was Katherine who intercepted him this time, throwing him down onto the floor on his back.

"You're the youngest vampire here, Damon. Well, aside from Blondie." Katherine said sweetly before a sharp crack broke the air and three of Damon's fingers were bent backwards, almost touching the back of his hand. As soon as Katherine released his wrist, his bones began knitting back together and within a few seconds his hand looked normal again, but he took a moment to flex them, checking.

"Try anything again and it's your spine next. That takes a hell of a lot longer to heal than just a couple of finger bones. And meanwhile, you're paralyzed. So sit still and shut up." Katherine placed him with his back to Elena, to afford her some amount of decency.

Stefan was already starting to come to, having been knocked out by only a blow to the head, not a stake or by vervain, and Katherine latched her hand around his wrist to keep him from going anywhere. He struggled against her for a moment, but then she whispered something into his ear and he stopped moving, his expression going from anger to something unreadable, even for Damon.

He wanted to break Elena out of the restraints, but in the look he'd gotten at them while Katherine was breaking his hand, he could tell that there was no way he would have the strength to either break the shackles or shear them away from the table, so he was forced to sit, blind to everything that was going on except for Katherine's attempts to sway Stefan. It turned his stomach in 1864 and it still did, but for different reasons. He no longer reviled the whispers because of jealousy, but out of disgust. Katherine's heart was blacker than midnight with no stars, and, as vile as he had been before Elena, he had never stooped to Katherine's level of treachery, deceit and debauchery. Alright, maybe debauchery, he allowed himself.

"Stop, please, don't do this!" Elena exclaimed as Aiana approached again and Bonnie moved to go forward, but Raechelle raised her hands and threw Bonnie back against the wall by the door, the young witch collapsing in a heap at Caroline's feet.

"Bonnie!" Caroline yelled and dropped to her friend's side, checking to make sure she was alright.

For the first time in a long time, Damon felt utterly helpless, able only to listen to Elena's cries, or risk not being able to help her once everything was said and done because of paralysis. Her cries became muffled, and he could hear the liquid being poured from the goblet, splashing over Elena's tongue, and the gurgling as she was forced to swallow it.

The crack he heard next was unmistakable. He had heard it several times, having administered a similar fate to countless humans over the decades of his undeath. His chest tightened and he felt dizzy, even though he didn't need the air. His throat choked closed and he would swear that he heard his heart breaking in the same sound as the breaking of Elena's neck.

"It is done." Aiana said, tossing the goblet to the floor with a clatter, breaking the tangible silence that fell over the room, as Katherine was the only one not horrified. Then a moment later, a piercing scream cut the air, and Damon saw Caroline fall back onto the floor and slide backwards, her mouth gaping open, but she was not the one screaming. And Bonnie was still out cold. He turned his head in Elena's direction and even though her head was bent up and backwards at an angle impossible without the breaking, the blood curdling shriek was emanating from her.

"Katherine, what have you-?" Damon paused his question as he looked around the area where Katherine and Stefan had been only a moment earlier and found it to be empty. He looked around the rest of the loft and saw a pair of curtains fluttering out into the street from a window across the large room.

"Where did she go?" Damon demanded of Aiana, ignoring momentarily, Elena's repeated screams

"Katherine comes and goes more freely than the wind. I have no idea where she intends to go next, or why she took your brother with her."

"Oh, I think I know why she took him." Damon said and looked down at Elena, the situation too dire for even him to be stirred by her nakedness and thought pityingly

"She's never stopped trying to get him to be hers. Not since 1864."

* * *

"Stop thrashing Stefan, I can give you what you want." Katherine whispered into his ear after clamping her hand down on him with the strength of a vice. She was four hundred years older and stronger, and he knew it. Obediently he stopped and listened to what she had to say

"I can tell you've gone off the rails again, I know you attacked Elena. I know you're reverting back to a ripper. And I want to take you with me." She pressed something cylindrical into his hand that was slightly warm. He looked down to see the deep red of blood inside the glass tube.

"You've been too good for too long, Stefan. Come be bad with me. No rules, no limits, just the world."

The part of Stefan that left Mystic Falls to try and better himself before returning to Elena was railing against Katherine's words, telling him to remain strong, to cast the vial away, and stay on his path.

But the darker part of him, the primal animal that had been woken when he had first been turned into a vampire in 1864, the part that shut off his humanity, urged him forward. His bloodlust was raging and he unstoppered the vial with hardly a second thought, draining the contents in an instant. It was Elena's blood, and fresh too.

"When Aiana kills Elena, escape with me."

He nodded, and as soon as they heard the crack, they were off like marathon runners, out through the window and leaping over buildings and roads like it was their own personal obstacle course. A portion of Stefan registered that Elena had just been killed, and that he should feel bad, but that part was being increasingly buried by his demon. The Ripper.

**Yes, I am intending this story to be Damon/Elena and Stefan/Katherine. You get a double update today: this and the third chapter of "Inevitable"  
**


	10. Half Alive

**I own no part of Vampire Diaries**

Elena continued to scream, but she appeared to have been paralyzed by her broken neck. Caroline continued to cower against the wall by the stairwell in disgust, having averted her eyes. Aiana simply looked at Elena impassively and then gestured between Damon and the table.

"Would you like to do the honors?"

"The honor of what?" He asked disgusted

"Feed her your blood to heal her. Obviously she can't move, and she can't carry on with her neck broken like that." Aiana's face was impassive, and it was eerie to see a vision of what Katherine and Elena could look like if they were older.

Damon kept eye contact with Aiana for a few more long moments, then made the decision that helping Elena was more important than staring down her ancient doppleganger. He bit the inside of his wrist and held it to Elena's mouth. The room went quiet as her screams were muffled and she drank from him. When he pulled back, his wound healed almost instantly, and he watched as Elena's head shifted downward, the bones and nerves reknitting. He saw the raw skin on her wrists and ankles replaced by new, smooth flesh, and he knew that under the bandage where her blood had been drawn, there would be no puncture or bruise.

Aiana walked over to the table where Elena was still restrained and unlocked the shackles with an elaborate silver key,

"You're free to go."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that." Aiana shrugged in reply, "I'll give her some clothes to wear. You should really check out some of the sights before you head back. It's not every day you get to be in Paris you know." She began to walk toward the back room and Raechelle lowered her head as Aiana passed, in a show of reverence.

"You're telling me that after you went to the trouble to threaten and kidnap Elena, and take her halfway around the world, you're just going to let her go?"

"I have a greater plan, Damon. Klaus needs her for his ritual. I know this as well as Katherine does because we were his prey long before Elena was born. I have made it so that not only is she safe when the time comes, but her blood will be poison to him. If all goes well, his thirst for the power of a hybrid will lead to his death. So you see, keeping her here would be counterintuitive to that end. Therefore, she must return to Mystic Falls, where Klaus will be looking for her."

As soon as Aiana removed the last of the shackles, Elena curled into a ball on her left side to hide herself, and she cried. Damon didn't know whether or not to try and go over to her and comfort her, or whether he should keep a very clear distance. His predicament was solved easily when Caroline composed herself and went over to the table, placing a comforting hand on the trembling girl's shoulder.

Elena jumped and looked up at Caroline with hollow eyes. Damon heard Caroline's sharp gasp, and he too felt a shiver of dread. They were the haunted eyes of a person who had gone through a terrible loss, and would take a long time before they were the same again.

Caroline looked back at Damon, her eyes a question of whether he saw what she had seen in Elena's empty stare and he nodded once. Just then, Aiana came back from the bedroom with a change of clothes for Elena. Damon obediently turned his back as Caroline helped Elena get dressed.

It took almost ten minutes, because Elena didn't want to move, and whenever Caroline urged her, the human gave her a reproachful look. When Damon was finally allowed to turn back around, he decided that French fashion suited Elena very well. The heels she wore gave her an extra three inches, making her legs look even longer than they already were, and Caroline had pulled Elena's hair into a braid to keep it out of her face.

"I think we should just go home." Damon said and Caroline nodded.

"I'll carry Elena. She's in a pretty fragile state right now, and probably embarrassed that you saw her… like that. I think you should take Bonnie. She's still out cold."

Damon nodded and walked over to pick up the young witch. When he lifted her to his chest her head flopped limply against his shoulder and he froze.

_Tha-thump – Tha-thump – Tha-thump._

"Caroline?" Damon asked cautiously

"What?" The blond asked in reply, holding Elena in her arms, the brunette's head buried in her shoulder and arms around her neck.

"How many heartbeats do you hear?" Caroline tilted her head the slightest fraction of an inch, then her eyes widened

"One, I only hear one." They both set down their charges and Damon felt Bonnie's neck for a pulse while Caroline did the same with Elena.

"This is impossible."

"What the…?"

"It's Bonnie. Bonnie is still alive."

* * *

"Aunt Jenna?" Jeremy called over the stair railing

"What is it, Jer?" Jenna asked as she ran down the downstairs hallway, pulling her hair into a ponytail as she did so. She was in a hurry to get to the University and she was already hopelessly late.

"Have you seen Elena?"

"No, but that isn't too unusual these days," Jenna shrugged. She knew that she was supposed to be a parental role model for Elena and Jeremy, but when they had grown up seeing her as more of a much older sister it was difficult to put herself into that ultra-protective mode.

"She's probably just at the boarding house with Stefan."

"I don't think so… Bonnie and Caroline were here yesterday and I overheard them talking. Matt and Caroline broke up, and then they asked about Stefan and Elena got really quiet.

"Then… call Damon, maybe he knows."

"Damon isn't answering his phone."

"Jeremy, I'm sure she's fine. She can take care of herself. I'll be at the University. If she isn't back tomorrow, then we'll have some reason to be worried. Until then, I'm just going to assume that she's been spending the night at the boarding house."

"You know the last time she disappeared for two days, she totaled your car. And _I'm_ the bad kid?"

"You _were_ the bad kid," Jenna clarified as she threw her jacket on, "you went through a rough patch when your parents died and I still have the chills from the parent-teacher meeting to prove it. But then you turned yourself around, and you're doing a lot better. I was a bad kid too, don't forget. And then I had to grow up real fast so I could take care of you guys. I hope you guys don't have to grow up that fast."

Jeremy just smiled in return, not having the heart to continue the conversation when he knew that he and Elena had already had to grow up faster than either of them would have liked, and it was partly the fault of the vampires that had come back to Mystic Falls.

"Have fun in class." He said with as much cheer as he could muster

"Ha! Right, because being a grad student is fun. Enjoy high school Jeremy, it all goes downhill from here." Jenna picked up her bag and left.

Jeremy turned around from the place on the stairs he had walked down to during the conversation and went back up to his room. He sat down at his desk where his sketchbook lay open to a page half filled with a picture of Anna, as best as he could remember her. He sighed and laid his head back against the headrest of his desk chair and thought to himself that the vampires returning was as good a reason as any to avoid being sober. No wonder Ric was a fan of bourbon.

He picked up his phone and after hesitating for a moment, he called Elena. There was open static for a moment before he heard the faint electronic trill that meant the phone was ringing. A second later, he heard Elena's ringtone coming from her bedroom. He was on his feet in a second and ran through the bathroom they shared into her room. Her phone was face down and underneath her vanity table as though it had fallen from her pocket. Elena never forgot to take her phone anywhere.

He picked it up and ended the call from his phone. The notification for a missed call appeared on the screen and he opened her phone to delete it. To his surprise, there were six missed calls from Damon. So he didn't know where she was either.

Jeremy sat back and leaned against the foot of Elena's bed, a cell phone in each numb hand. His sister was missing and he had absolutely no idea where to find her, or even where to begin looking.

* * *

"Damon, what does this mean? Is Elena in transition?" Caroline asked frantically, emotion rising in her voice as she checked Elena for a pulse again, finding nothing.

"Tell me what you did to her, Aiana." Damon looked up, his voice filled with venom, and stared down the vampire.

"I told you, I made her poisonous to Klaus."

"She's dead."

"Not completely." Raechelle spoke, and it surprised everyone in the room, as she had become something of a fixture, something one's eyes passed over, unnoticed.

"What do you mean, not completely. Tell me what happened to her, and tell me how I can fix it."

"You can't, creature. Her heart no longer beats in a human manner, it is true, but she is not a vampire. In fact, she does not require blood at all. That is how Klaus will be fooled. In a few hours, it will appear as though she has a heartbeat, even though there is no pulse. Her life energy is in a nucleus of sorts in her chest. She does not need blood because she is no longer alive in the human sense, and she no longer needs oxygen." Raechelle said the words while staring directly ahead.

"How is she alive if she's not breathing, or bleeding?" Caroline asked

"Her spirit is intact, and her body is fueled by magic. She will remain alive by tethering herself to the essences of other humans, much as a witch does when drawing power from another."

"So she sucks people's souls?" Damon asked incredulously

"In a manner of speaking," Raechelle's voice still held the airy notes of a compulsion, "she is a psionic now. She will remain alive indefinitely as long as she is able to take energy from humans."

"That's it," Damon flashed over to Raechelle, and Aiana did not stop him. He locked eyes with her and easily initiated a compulsion. Aiana wasn't protecting her pet with vervain.

"You are going to come with us, and teach the girl you just hollowed out how to stay alive. And if she dies, you're next." He broke the compulsion and when he said

"We are leaving." Raechelle followed obediently, and allowed herself to be carried under one arm as he and Caroline began their jumps away across the rooftops back toward the airport.


End file.
